Do you feel very touched and delighted when someone actually remembers your birthday?

Before the facebook era, I tend to use this simple method of gauging who are indeed my friends: if they can remember my birthday.

By that, I don’t need them to give me any presents; just a simple, “hey, it’s your birthday today!” can actually make my day.

However, when facebook took over the world, I am certain that this method is obsolete.

The very first time when I registered facebook in 2006, I had unknowingly set my birth date as Jan 1.

I had never bothered to change it as I would never think that could bother me at all.

During the past few years, facebook had made some rather “impressive” improvements on the user interface. This includes the all time favourite birthday reminder. Whenever a friend’s birthday is just around the corner, his/her name will appear in the birthday reminder and there will be an option for you to leave a birthday message.

For the past few years, I had received quite a number of birthday greetings on Jan 1.

Some were from acquaintances who do not know my exact birth date but I had quite a few from my good friends who actually know my exact birth date.

Well, it seems pretty clear that the heavy reliance on facebook has struck on how we relate to others socially. Bane or boon, only time will tell.